Harvard Dental School to Run Deficit, Dean Confident in Mending Donor Relations

Harvard School of Dental Medicine Dean William V. Giannobile said the school will run a deficit this year but expressed confidence in his ability to mend fractured donor relationships in a Wednesday interview with The Crimson, his first in three years.

Giannobile said that HSDM “will be running a small deficit” this upcoming year, which he credited to maintenance and repair costs of the school’s 115-year-old building.

“This is a building that has had two sinkholes since I started,” Giannobile said.

“One of my big areas that I want to work on is to create new state of the art facilities for our students,” he added.

In the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel and ensuing campus tensions, the University has seen a donor exodus that has left gift officers worried. In fiscal year 2024, total philanthropic contributions to Harvard fell by $151 million as several billionaire donors severed ties over the University’s response to campus antisemitism.

But for Giannobile, who leads a school with only 2,700 living alumni, losing donors is less of a concern.

“If we would hear from those alumni, and they would voice, ‘I’m upset with the University about this, this, and this,’ I would pick up the phone and talk to them,” Giannobile said.

Though he acknowledged that for “some of them, it will take them time to come back,” Giannobile emphasized that “we want them to feel a sense of pride in the school.”

Harvard Medical School will also be operating on a deficit this year — after entering its first break-even in 13 years in 2022 — HMS Dean George Q. Daley ’82 said during his State of the School address in September.

Though HSDM is the University’s smallest school in terms of enrollment and often collaborates with HMS, the two schools draw on different sources of funding and are financially independent, Giannobile said.

The Dental School obtains 35 percent of its funding from clinical activities — such as the Harvard Dental Center, run by HSDM students and faculty — 20 percent from research funding, 25 percent from endowment revenues and gifts, and the remaining 20 percent from tuition fees, Giannobile said. In contrast, HMS relies heavily on research funding but operates no clinic of its own.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.

—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @akshayaravi22.